


'Letters', a Collection

by ziennajames



Series: Icarus and the Sun [4]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Gen, M/M, One-Sided Attraction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-25
Updated: 2015-05-18
Packaged: 2018-03-03 10:23:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2847581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ziennajames/pseuds/ziennajames
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>S.,</p><p>Y’know how I said I was looking forward to shipping out? Best is the meals are regular, but they’d taste better if you’d cooked them. (Still can’t believe you almost set the whole place on fire, gave old Mrs. L. a fright, the bat.)</p><p>Take care, alright? And say yes when Mrs. H. offers you food. It’s sick season again soon.</p><p>B.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1942 - 1943

**Author's Note:**

> This story operates on mainly mcu background story, but might draw details from comic-verse at times. Rated T for language.

S.,

Y'know how I said I was looking forward to shipping out? Best is the meals are regular, but they'd taste better if you'd cooked them. (Still can't believe you almost set the whole place on fire, gave old Mrs. L. a fright, the bat.)

Take care, alright? And say yes when Mrs. H. offers you food. It's sick season again soon.

B.

 

* * *

 

S.,

Hoped I could bring you some exciting news this time, but everything is still less fun than it sounds. At least when I had to save your ass, there was some excitement involved in there somewhere. The amount of running around was the same, I bet. Used to have a whole network of paperboys tracking your every move. We had a system all worked out, figure I can tell you safely now when you're not near enough to hit me for it.

Try not to get into too much trouble while I'm not around (the 'try' is important here).

B.

 

* * *

 

S.,

Remember that photobooth last summer, at Coney Island? The guys all have pictures of their sweethearts or some famous dame all dressed up nice and here I am, still stuck with you. Draw me something nice to cheer up my bunk with, would you? I have a reputation to uphold and stories to tell. Marching gets boring fast.

How's the building doing? Lucy still needing a sitter for the twins? Take the job if she does. Say hi to Becca and the boys for me. Happy new year's to you too. Stay warm.

B.

PS. Kinda starting to miss everyone. Kinda starting to miss having you around a big deal, but if you ask me later I'll deny it, of course.

 

* * *

 

S.,

Better hope these all letters are finding you well. If you got sick and refused help from the girls again, I swear to all that's holy, I'm begging off leave to spoon-feed you that god-awful chicken soup you made me once. The worst part is how I'm kinda excited about the prospect myself. Nothing good happens here. Stay away from this.

Hope to get back home soon.

B.

PS. When I said 'draw me something nice' I was hoping a little less 'me'. I'm still flattered by you drawing me all pristine in uniform. I can promise it doesn't look like that anymore.

 

* * *

 

S.,

Now it's getting warmer I sometimes lie awake and look at your drawings. The guys think I'm sweet on _Becs_ , which is right stupid. Some of 'm are nice enough and you can't be picky about who you make friends with here. Every time I wish you were here I feel really damn guilty, you know that? I miss you. I made peace with not going home any time soon, but I do miss you.

I'm keeping sane by telling myself you're not getting into too much trouble without me, so you'd better not.

B.

PS. What'd you offer her to have her pose for you anyway? Tell her she's beautiful from me, tell her I'll be home in time for her birthday too. Turning 16 is a big thing, I'll try to get her a present. I owe her that much.

 

* * *

 

S.,

I want to come home real bad. The guys all moon at photo's of their sweethearts and go on about love and maybe it's not the same, but I know that I would give everything to just wake up next to you again every morning, even if you're a stove and it's mid-summer. It's not over yet, but I want it to. I want to come home.

Hug everyone for me and tell them I miss them. There's only so many letters I can send.

B.

PS. Tell Becca I'm not going to be in time for her birthday. Tell her I'm sorry.

 

* * *

 

S.,

Some days all that gets me by is knowing you're half a world away. Take factory work, paint posters and signs, sit the kids if you have to, just... Not here. Not you. Not you too.

Stay safe.

B.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I figured at best it would take about a month for a letter to get delivered, then another month for Steve's replies to arrive. Even with short deployment this means the last letter would've been send just before Buck's unit went missing.
> 
> [Cross-posted from my tumblr](http://capspatrioticpecs.tumblr.com/post/106113865466), where you should definitely come talk to me.


	2. 1944

S.,

You're not gonna read this, but to hell if that's gonna stop me writing it all down. It clears my head, see. Makes it real, to have it on paper like that, _seeing is believing_. I'm not sure I would've believed anything about you if I hadn't seen it with my own two eyes and be honest with you: who would? Remember as kids, how we'd pinch ourselves after waking from a bad dream or something really good happening, just in case? I'm not sure which one you are. I keep doing it anyway.

It's hard to believe you're _here_. Not as hard as it is to deny it, way I keep following you around. Don't think I could handle it if you'd just be gone again one minute to the next, have my brain playing me like that. But it gets folk to talk. You always said I had this way of looking at you differently and I thought it was bull, but the guys say the same now so I guess you're right, like even a broken clock is right twice a day. Morita had the guts to pull me aside to tell me I _changed_ when I look at your dumb mug, whatever that means. Said that if I'd gone soft for you, sweet on you, it'd be fine, no one making trouble; said unit like this no one's in a place to judge.

I laughed in his face. What was I supposed to do? I haven't shaved in days, no chance to wash up in this godforsaken place and neither have you, but I still gotta squint at you like you're radiating goddamn sunshine. The rest, we're a mess, we all are, and I can't bring myself to feel bad about it. That's the big difference between us now: you care more than I do. Maybe it's a USO thing. Just think it's funny how being out here changes a man. Makes you rethink your priorities.

At watch, used to, when I got sick of staring into the dark at nothing I'd stare at the stars instead, play a little game to see if I could make anything of 'm. And I still can't, obviously, but I liked to think that stars were a universal kinda thing, something we'd still share even on other sides of the world. Now I just think about how I used to get you artsy stuff you had an eye on: pencils, pens, anything, new or not. How mad you'd get at me for it every damn time. _Grocery money, rent money,_ my _money_  -- anger turned you into a right looker, all pumped up big, taking up all the space you were supposed to. Might've even been why I kept at it. And I'd do it all again if I could, buy you every sketchbook, every set of oils and brushes you'd even glance twice at. I'd buy you all over again if it'd meant you'd stick with me just a little while longer.

Don't get big-headed, I'll knock it right out again. Keeping an eye on you, that's what I do best. That's what I was put on this sorry earth for. Did you know they offered me a way out? As if I'd ever let you leave my sight after the shit you pulled getting here. You pull the best and the worst outta me, pal, turn me reckless to match. Too used to sleeping with one eye open to keep you out of trouble. Maybe we've always been a unit build for war, brains and brawn and loyalty all tied up neat with a bow.

You're real damn special to me, I want you to know that. More than any dame or girl, more than any fella. More than family, but you are family, best I'd ever could've dreamed of.

I still miss home, miss it every second they give me the time to think. I miss the city, I miss the sounds, and hell I miss you too. This new you they've got me is just fine and all, but God help me, as much as I wished you'd grow into that fat mouth of yours, I do, more than anything. Truth is: back there, they all said you'd be lost without me, end up broke and bloodied in a ditch, but it's not like that. The pastor and my ma and the whole neighborhood with 'm were all wrong: you're so damn stubborn, you'd get by fine. It's me who'd have no idea what to do. I'm not paying with crinkled bills and change anymore. They're getting my breath, my blood, my sanity. Stolen time. Might mean you get to go back and I won't and it'll still have been worth every damn second. Wouldn't, no, _couldn't_ have it any other way. It's either both of us or you without me and that's it, that's final.

You'd have my head if you heard me be selfish like this, but it does make it all the more funny you're haunting my ass about stuff now. Telling me to sleep more, rest up for all the damn marching we do and leave the watch to your _Captain A-fucking-Wonderboy_ self; telling me to shove off when I try to keep you company, trying to do my part back. Not that I don't appreciate it, but it's useless. I don't need the sleep, not like I used to. It's one thing they did right on that table.

I know you don't like me talking about it, you know I don't like talking about it, but I gotta try and make light about it somehow, don't I? Not much to laugh about otherwise. Ribbing you about Stark or your girl isn't making you smile or talk either, which: some best friend you are, keeping all quiet. So I'll go first, tell you this: when I close my eyes, I just - I'm back there. Even if I'd needed the sleep I wouldn't have gotten it, wouldn't have wanted it, not at this price. Always knew I was the one ruined and here it is, all laid out pretty. It's better I've got you on my mind, not me -- there's nothing of me to save left.

So I guess in the end you and the guys are right about not a whole lot of things, but you are about this, like clockwork, and I guess I know why: you're the only thing in this fucked up world that can still make me feel something every damn time.

Maybe not so much has changed after all.

B.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I read _The Thirteen Letters_ and watched _RENT_ last week and it made me start to write another letter. Started as a three-piece series of separate diary entries and rewritten into one long letter, it got a little longer than the previous ones.
> 
> Talk to me [on tumblr](http://capspatrioticpecs.tumblr.com)?


End file.
